Jim Messina: ”It Was Always Going to be Close”

So I just finished talking with Jim Messina, Barack Obama’s winning 2012 campaign manager.

Boy this guy knows politics. He knows the numbers. He knows the states. He knows the strategies. He knows the personalities. And he offers this great mix of numbers and narrative – he’s a walking master class. The data doesn’t matter without the story, and if you’ve got a campaign message but no numbers to get to 270 votes, well that doesn’t matter much either. For background in case you don’t know, before the 2012 Obama for America campaign, Jim served as Obama’s Deputy Chief of Staff. Before that he worked on Capitol Hill. He almost literally grew up running campaigns, from his home state Montana to Alaska, New York, and more. Today, the Messina Group helps run campaigns around the world. Anyhow, we had a great discussion on the changing demographics in America and of American voters – and how that should be helping Hillary Clinton and Democrats. I asked him to help me understand why, despite that, the race is still so close and Trump has such good numbers in some key swing states. Jim’s got excellent analysis on that and more… Also, he comes across as he also comes across as a really nice guy. Now, I’ve got to warn you – Jim’s a bit quiet in this conversation and the connection isn’t the greatest. He was calling from an airport lounge, and I think he just really didn’t want to disrupt the people around him. That’ll teach me to talk with nice guys. Also, the cell service – I know this is shocking – but the cell service wasn’t the best. However -- when you’ve got the campaign manager of Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign on the line and he’s giving you color and insights into that election and the current one and Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and demographics and his technology conversations with Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt and Steven Speilberg… well, you forgive a couple of “Can you hear me now” moments.